It has long been common practice for farm implements, which are mounted on or pulled by tractors, to be driven by rotary hydraulic motors and/or adjusted or otherwise controlled by hydraulic actuators, such as hydraulic cylinders. The hydraulic fluid pressure is supplied to such implements by a pump driven by the tractor engine. The connection between the implement's hydraulic equipment and the tractor is through one or more pairs of hydraulic couplers, conventionally a pair of male hydraulic couplers on the hydraulic hoses of the implement being engageable with a complementary pair of female hydraulic couplers mounted on the tractor. Since the speed of the implement and/or the rate at which adjustments, such as raising and lowering the implement, for example, are made is a direct function of the rate at which hydraulic fluid is supplied to the implement hydraulic motors and/or actuators, it is necessary to control the rate of flow of such fluid from the tractor. Typically, this flow rate was controlled by operation of a lever on a flow control valve stem at a location remote from the tractor cab, which required the operator to stop the tractor, dismount from the cab, make the flow rate adjustment believed to be necessary and then remount the cab to operate the tractor-implement combination. When the effect of the adjustment could not be observed at the time of adjustment, the operator would be required to repeat this procedure until the proper flow rate was achieved.
It is, therefore, an object of this invention to provide a means for controlling from the operator's seat the rate of hydraulic fluid flow between a tractor and an associated implement.
It is also an object of this invention to provide such a means which isolates the tractor cab from the vibration and resulting noise associated with the flow rate control valve.
It is a further object to provide such a control means which visually coordinates a multiplicity of flow rate valves with the associated hydraulic couplers and their respective control means.
It is a still further object of this invention to provide such a control means with a touch sensing means to assist the operator in adjusting the flow rate by feel.
It is another object of this invention to provide such a control means which is readily adaptable to control a variable number of flow rate valves, which is compact, which can be assembled as a sub-assembly before attachment to the tractor for economy and ease of manufacture, and which permits relative motion between the valves secured to the tractor frame and a vibration-isolated cab mounted on that frame without affecting the setting of said control means.